


always a riddle inside my head

by dizzy



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M, dan and phil as rude houseguests, kickthefire lives, voyeur pj
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-08-10 00:10:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7822663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan loves Phil and Phil loves Dan and PJ loves women but apparently PJ's dick didn't get that memo, oops.</p>
            </blockquote>





	always a riddle inside my head

There's a moment in the kitchen, where Dan's helping PJ do the washing up. It's 2015. Dan and Phil are in the prime of their career, tours and books and flashing lights and adoring fans. PJ is standing still in the vortex of a changed industry, trying to figure out which step will actually take him forward instead of plummeting him down to rock bottom. 

He's jealous, of course. Not of what Dan and Phil have, but of the opportunities it grants them. He grows resentful thinking of what he'd do in their position but he's also aware that he'd never end up in their position in the first place. 

They just have something most people don't have. They have each other. PJ's been thinking about that a lot too. He's thinking about Dan and Phil in Italy, drunk and kissing in the shadows, and how he's pretty sure he caught them with Phil's hand down Dan's pants. He's thinking about the way he lingered to watch, the pink slickness of Dan's mouth. He's thinking of waking them up in the morning and seeing them tucked in together. 

It was trust, back then. They trusted him enough to be themselves around him. They still do but now it's other ways, more subtle ways. The way Dan doesn't so much as rest a hand on Phil's shoulder but the intimacy and the warmth is still there. It's evident in the two bags on the floor of his office by the ladder, the understood awareness that they'll be folding both their long bodies onto that loft bed. 

They trust him enough to even be here when they could have easily gone straight from their show to a hotel bed for a good night of sleep. But they were in town and PJ offered and they accepted and now that's got them here, Phil and Sophie making conversation a room over while Dan helps PJ wash up after their late meal of mostly Halloween themed but unhealthy snacks. 

"You're doing good, then?" PJ asks. The silence didn't need to be broken but the thoughts in his head were too suffocating. 

Dan gives him a strange look. "Could be worse." 

"I mean - you and Phil. Not - the rest. That's good, obviously. But you and Phil are good?" 

"Yeah." Something in Dan's expression softens. "We're really good, actually. I thought this tour thing would make us want to murder each other, but I think it's making us even closer." 

"Yeah? Anything happening on the relationship front? Wedding bells a'ringing?" He winks ridiculously. It's completely worth the boldness to see Dan's cheeks suddenly go a delicate pink in certain splotches. 

Dan almost drops the plate in his hand. One side of it dips down almost touching the countertop before he rescues it. 

"God, no." Dan laughs. "We've got stuff to figure out first." 

PJ nods, thinking that might be it, but after a moment Dan goes on. 

"Though it kind of sucks, because- because it's not really us we need to figure things out between. We're good, you know? Phil is, he’s. We’re good. I could marry him tomorrow and be happy, if we existed in a vacuum in space. But we don't-”

“Probably good,” PJ interrupts him to say. “I think you’d die in a vacuum in space.” 

Dan’s laugh is just a touch too loud, like the noise surprises itself out of him. He relaxes after that though. PJ tries not to feel too pleased with his apparent good timing and calming, if dumb, humor. Dan puts the plate down on the counter, hands still holding it by the edges. “There's all this other shit we'd have to work out. It would change our careers, and that's scary. It feels like a lot to risk, even though so much is going right in our lives."

PJ wonders how often Dan's even asked about that. Does anyone else dare? It spurs PJ on. "Is that something you two talk about?" 

"Once in a while," Dan says. "But I think right now we're just trying to get through this. Through the next year, really. We've got tours lined up through this time next year, and there are other things going on." 

"Ooh, secret projects." PJ teases.

"Always." Dan gives him a wry grin. "But after that, who knows. Maybe we’ll get married. Maybe youtube will get bought out by some monolith and we’ll all be made redundant by CGI counterparts. Maybe the universe will implode on itself." 

"Well." PJ finishes washing the last plate and hands it over to Dan. He grabs a dish cloth to wipe his damp hands on. "I expect an invite to the stag do, universal implosion notwithstanding." 

“Mine or Phil’s?” Dan asks, amusement in his voice. 

Right. Because they’re both guys. Yeah. It’s not like PJ forgot. He just didn’t think. That happens, once in awhile - the not thinking. Around Dan maybe more than anyone else.

“I feel like I should say Phil’s out of friend loyalty,” PJ says, dropping his voice to a whisper as if confiding. “But I’ll be swayed by who throws the best party. I’m easy like that.” 

“Mine, obviously, then. Phil might have better food and a theme of some sort, but I’ll have the strippers,” Dan says. 

“Oh, strippers. Well, that settles it.” 

“Phil will be sad, I’m sure.” 

“I’ll stop in at his,” PJ says. “Briefly. Make a token appearance before I continue on to the real party. Just so he’s not too bereft.”

Dan smiles at him, the real kind of smile, and PJ tries not to do something stupid to keep that smile aimed at him. Instead he hands Dan the cloth to wipe his own hands on and says, "Better go check on the old ball-and-chains." 

* 

It's three am and the house is quiet. 

PJ can't sleep. Sophie is snoring gently beside him, but PJ’s mind just won’t shut off.

It's not uncommon, but usually he can escape to his office and while away the twilight hours working on a project until his mind feels at least. But tonight they've split three bottles of wine between the four of them and that should be enough to lull his brain into rest. 

Apparently tonight the wine is just not. He eventually gives up, mouth dry and headache barely starting to form. He'll have some water, save himself pain come morning time. 

The journey to the kitchen is a well worn path his feet make a dozen times a day, but this time he stops outside the office door. He can hear hushed sounds, voices. He can hear - something else. He goes absolutely still, his gut telling him what he's listening in on before his mind will actually accept it. 

Someone's breath catching. 

A laugh quieted. 

A muffled sound. 

Slick, something - slick. The soft smack of skin on skin, the sound bodies make moving together. He can’t tell for sure what they’re doing, the specifics of it. He’s not sure how to distinguish one muffled sound from another. His mind paints a picture anyway, though. 

PJ's head spins. He leans against the wall. They wouldn't, would they? 

Three bottles of wine, though. The way they were sitting practically on top of each other by the time they called it a night. The little looks between them that made PJ want to avert his eyes, that chemistry layered with something untouchable. 

He hears a low noise that has to be Phil. 

They're fucking in his loft bed right now. PJ's heart is pounding and he can't tell if he feels queasy or turned on. 

Does he walk away? Does he crawl back into bed with Sophie and force his eyes shut? 

No, he stays, feet glued to the ground and back pressed against the wall behind him. He turns his head away from the door, so he can see if Sophie comes looking for him. He keeps his eyes open out of paranoia. 

There's a throb down low, blood rushing. He hears that softer sound, that higher one. He thinks about Italy, and about what he saw then. He imagines, without any intention to, what they're doing a few feet away right now. 

There's almost nothing to hear. The door is pulled shut. They're being as discreet as they can be. But PJ's hand still drifts down, fingers fitting the shape of himself through two layers and squeezing slightly. He's so hard and he's not sure when it happened but every little sound that leaks through to his ears makes him twitch a little more. 

He can hear Dan most. It's not that he's actually louder, it's just that he seems to make more noises. Gasps, laughs, high pleased whines. The fact that PJ is just sitting in wait while he fists his dick makes it all the more exciting, winds him up tighter every time he's rewarded with another. 

He thinks he can hear when Phil comes because Phil lets out one slightly louder sound and Dan hushes him. PJ isn't picturing anything at all now, his entire world has narrowed down to an auditory experience. He’s waiting, almost afraid to breathe, waiting, because he knows it’ll happen and oh god he just-

When Dan comes, PJ comes too. He comes with his eyes closed and his opened hand pressed tight against his cock, rocking the wide spread of his palm in hard digs against himself. The illicit pleasure makes his orgasm electric, the kind that goes on and on forever after such a slow quiet build, making his toes curl and his mouth drop open. 

Fuck. 

* 

PJ stands in the bathroom with the door locked and the light too harsh on his eyes. He wipes the come off his dick and the inside of his underwear as best he can, already feeling the sinking misery of shame. He'll have to do the wash as soon as they leave, or else try and pass it off to Sophie as a wet dream the likes of which he hasn't had in years. 

He's tired and sleepy and confused and already wants to lock what he just did away tight and never think of it again. He also wants a drink of water and to pass out in bed because he just came his brains out. 

He balls up the pants and sticks them halfway into the pile of clothes to be washed, then creeps out back down the hallway wearing just his pyjama bottoms. He's rubbing a hand over his mouth when he turns the corner into the kitchen and sees that someone is already there. 

"Oh," he says, stopping in the doorway. Why didn't he notice that the light was already on? His mind is all sorts of fogged up. 

Dan looks at him with wide eyes, clearly caught. "Oh," he also says. "Peej. Hey." 

"Just getting some water," PJ says. 

Their voices are both low. PJ wonders if it was Phil who was thirsty. He wonders if Phil is cleaning up now. With morbid curiosity, he wonders if the sheets will have any stains on them. Maybe they were using their mouths. Maybe-

"Me, too. Didn't think anyone would be up," Dan says. He's wearing only a pair of boxer briefs and PJ is resolutely not looking down. He keeps his eyes fixed somewhere near Dan’s shoulder but even then he can’t help but notice how Dan’s chest is flushed. He tries looking up instead and all he sees is the way Dan’s hair is mussed, gone to curl in the front and around the temple.

Dan looks like someone who just got well-fucked. PJ stares for maybe a moment too long because Dan’s face begins to redden, that spot on his cheek going pink. "Just... thirsty." 

"Yeah, me too," PJ says. He has a moment of irrational fear that his voice or his eyes might give something away, but Dan looks too distracted by his own nerves. His eyes are trained just over PJ's shoulder. “Couldn’t sleep. Thirsty.” 

"I'll just-" Dan nods toward the doorway behind PJ. "Back to bed. Beauty rest." 

"Yeah." PJ could - should - step aside and let Dan pass, but he doesn't and Dan's shoulder ends up brushing his as he walks past PJ. The scent of sex and sweat is faint but there when PJ breathes in at just the right moment. In a fit of melodrama once Dan has passed, PJ leans his body weight against the counter and sighs. 

He doesn't move again until he hears the sound of the office door shutting, then he gets his water and drains the glass in one long go. 

* 

Sophie is still fast asleep when PJ gets back in bed. She stirs slightly as he gets comfortable, his breath catching until she relaxes again. 

As much as his mind wants to contemplate and repress all at once, his body is satisfied with itself and his eyes grow heavy right away. 

It’s nothing, he thinks. 

A temporary stimulus. An imaginary wanting, born out of something in the universe misalignment for a moment. Just as the last slivers of consciousness begin to loosen their hold, he thinks of Dan in the kitchen and the slope of his shoulders and it feels too strange to even be that wrong.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to mermaid for showing me the light of PJ's true lust for Dan, and also beta reading. 
> 
>  
> 
> [read and reblog on tumblr if you should so desire](http://slightlydizzier.tumblr.com/post/149235603074/always-a-riddle-inside-my-head)


End file.
